Untouchable Read Online Free PDF

and swallowed, then passed around a bottle of water. Amber caught a glimpse of lips closing around a white pill.
    She leaned across to the others. ‘There are drugs here – we’ve got to get her out.’
    Hex looked at her. ‘Stop jigging like that.’
    Amber hadn’t realized she was moving in time to the music. She nudged him. ‘Go on, loosen up a bit.’ He glared at her.
    The group in front of them was now being searched by a pair of burly figures in black. Li looked down at her cut-off jeans and hiking boots. ‘I think we’re a bit underdressed. Do you think they’ll let us in?’
    Alex felt the urge to laugh. After all the dangerous things he’d done this was the first time he’d been searched for a weapon – on the way into a party. He was glad he’d left his knife at the hostel.
    The music was crashingly loud, like overhead thunder. A strobe light threw blue-white flashes around the cavernous room. The air smelled of sweat and warm bodies. The ravers carried glow sticks – fluorescent tubes – swinging them in patterns as they danced.
    Paulo stopped and stared. The last time he’d seen so many glow sticks was when they had been trapped by an earthquake in Belize – during a night of dust, rubble and death. Seeing a mass of writhing bodies drawing circles with them in a darkened railway tunnel was like an eerie flashback. He looked at Li and caught her eye.
    She mouthed at him. ‘ Déjà vu .’
    He nodded.
    It was impossible to talk. Alex turned to the others and they used hand signals. They’d split up and search the room.
    Hex and Amber made for the crowd of gyrating bodies. Amber was definitely grooving, an enormous smile on her face. Any moment, thought Hex, she would explode like a dervish and be lost in the mass of bodies. He followed, and before he knew it he was taking steps in the same rhythm. Everywhere were these glow sticks, like radioactive bars of candy. He looked at the girls carefully, at the swinging ponytails, the glittery faces.
    Alex picked his way to a quieter area, where people sat cross-legged on the floor, drinking water, sucking lollipops. He saw a petite figure sitting with her back towards him and touched her on the shoulder. She turned round and offered him a bracelet made of Dolly Mixtures. It wasn’t Tiff. Alex shook his head and moved on.
    At the other end of the room he ran into Li. She looked back and pointed at Paulo, who was moving with a kind of speeded-up salsa step around a group of girls.
    Li had attracted some attention. A guy in baggy jeans with a chain hanging out of his pocket was offering her a bottle of water and putting his arm around her. She was clearly rejecting him but the guy persisted. If he went much further, thought Alex, Li might have to do something rather unfriendly.
    Alex went up to her and grabbed the bottle. Li put her arm around him and gave his waist a squeeze. Alex nodded at the guy and took a swig of water. The guy looked annoyed. Still, he got the message and went away.
    Li mouthed a word at Alex. ‘Tiff?’
    Alex shook his head.
    A wave of artificial smoke began to creep through the crowd, lit up in spots by the glow sticks and strobes. That would make it even more difficult to see who was there. Paulo emerged from the glowing fog like an apparition. He was closely followed by an emphatically grooving Amber and a jigging Hex.
    Alex looked at them enquiringly. They shook their heads. He gave another hand signal: go round again; split up.
    Again they disappeared into the flashing fog. Through the throng of bodies, in a strict search pattern, pushing past girls wearing butterfly wings, inspecting their glittery faces.
    So many people; how long would they have to search?
    Alex suddenly felt as if he’d closed his eyes for a minute and been rebooted, like a computer. What was he doing? He looked at the people dancing around him, their eyes half-closed. He’d spoken to that girl with the pigtails, the girl next to her with the